In an exclusive interview, Tushar Mehta, Co-founder & COO of Zypp Electric, explains why Hyderabad has emerged as the company’s next strategic growth hub for last-mile electric mobility. After building scale and impact across India’s top three quick commerce and food delivery markets Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai, Zypp has deployed 1,000 electric vehicles in Hyderabad as part of its aggressive expansion roadmap.
With its young, tech-savvy population, dense quick commerce hubs across Hitech City, Gachibowli and Secunderabad, and a progressive EV policy backed by robust swapping infrastructure, Hyderabad presents a compelling case for Zypp’s asset-light, gig-partner-first model. Mehta shares how the city is shaping Zypp’s ambition to scale to 10,000 EVs locally and 100,000 EVs across 25 cities nationally, while driving higher incomes, lower costs and better productivity for delivery partners.
1. Hyderabad is your chosen city for deploying 1000 EVs in this phase. What makes the city uniquely suited for Zypp Electric’s last mile mobility model?
Zypp is basically empowering the quick commerce and food delivery markets and Zypp has successfully done that in Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai which are the top three markets.
Following these three top markets, Hyderabad is definitely a big market for both quick commerce and food delivery, as well as e-commerce, being a high-tech city, being with young audience and being with, you know, the latest trends. And hence, we picked Hyderabad as our next market and deployed 1000 EVs very quickly. And because we have deployed the vehicles quickly, it also shows the promise that Hyderabad carries for, you know, Zypp-like business models.
2. How will this EV deployment address Hyderabad’s growing delivery demand across hubs like Hitech City, Gachi Bawli and Secunderabad?
Most of these markets, Gachi Bawli and high-tech city are the big hubs of quick commerce. We have 100+ for Blinkit, 120+ for Zepto, 23+ for Flipkart Minutes, 60+ for BBNow and 95+ for Instamart, we’ve already identified that there are over, you know, density of the hubs of quick commerce rightly positioned there and Zypp basically empowers all the gig partners to leave their petrol bikes, save money and start renting electric vehicles which is what Zypp powers and we offer them uptime and yes with these hubs Zypp now wants to penetrate from 1000 to 10,000 vehicles over the next one year.
3. What role have Telangana’s EV policy and city infrastructure played in supporting Zypp’s expansion in Hyderabad?
The progressive policy of Hyderabad or Telangana towards adoption of EV clearly helps Zypp deployments also and the TCO essentially what Zypp offers to the delivery partner and businesses makes sense versus a petrol bike which is the main reason why we are expanding into these markets. And, the infrastructure, the good part is that there was already an established swapping infrastructure developed by our swapping partners like Indofast Energy, which is Sun Mobility. And, you know, we have already set up our own infrastructure, which is Zypp Hub, which captures about 5,000 to 6,000 square feet space. We picked our hub in the Gachi-Bawli area only to cater to this impending demand of gig delivery.
4. With the launch of B2C EV rentals in Hyderabad, which consumer segment are you primarily targeting and why?
We target the single consumer segment, which is a gig delivery partner. That has been our constant focus. Hyderabad has a lot of gig delivery partners. They were all riding petrol vehicles. With the entry of Zypp, they start renting EVs and start saving 5000. Right. And we continue to empower them using our tech platform and offer them on demand, repair and maintenance service on-demand spare parts and top quality EV which is high speed so that it caters to all their delivery needs.
5. What tangible cost, income and productivity benefits can delivery partner and riders in Hyderabad expect from this transition to EVs?
Partners earn ₹25,000-35,000 monthly, 20% higher than ICE due to zero fuel costs and unlimited range with swapping infra. Savings exceed ₹5,000/month on maintenance/fuel, with 30% productivity gains from no charging downtime. Robust insurance and 24/7 hub support boost reliability, enabling 12-hour shifts without charging lags.
6. As Zypp plans to scale to 10,000 EVs across new market, how will learnings from Hyderabad shape your national expansion strategy?
So, Hyderabad is the first market where we have gone with all the learnings that we had in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai market. And hence, this is only going in with our top quality fleet cohort, along with the swapping infrastructure, which is already being set in that market. This is exactly what I think from that lens, the data points coming out from Hyderabad would be very critical for us to optimise our new city playbook beyond Hyderabad, which is possibly Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata. And with the learnings from Hyderabad, we will tweak and strengthen our city launch strategy to go into new markets and expand nationally to 25 cities and 100,000 EVs.
